American Institute for Indonesian Studies Established in 2011

By Barbara Gaerlan

The American Institute for Indonesian Studies is a new nonprofit educational organization formed as a consortium of U.S. universities and colleges with an interest in furthering the development of Indonesian studies. The main goals of AIFIS are to foster scholarly exchange between Indonesian and American scholars, to promote educational and research efforts by U.S. scholars in Indonesia, and to facilitate visits by Indonesian scholars to the U.S.

AIFIS has a new office in Jakarta and is planning an inaugural event January 9, 2012. AIFIS administration in the U.S. is based at Cornell University.  The United States Executive Director of AIFIS is Audrey R. Kahin, Ph.D. (Cornell University).  The Jakarta Resident Executive Director is Timothy McKinnon, Ph.D. (Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology). The AIFIS Board of Directors includes among others three faculty from the University of California: Muhamad Ali, Ph.D. (University of California, Riverside), Paul Barber, Ph.D. (University of California, Los Angeles) and Jeffrey Hadler, Ph.D. (University of California, Berkeley).

The AIFIS website is http://aifis.org/.